Refuse from individuals and businesses is often placed in plastic garbage bags for disposal. Such bags are used by consumers when the weekly accumulation of trash exceeds the space available in the one or two trash containers typically owned by a suburban dweller. In other instances, for persons who are not on a garbage route, the trash must be transported to a waste facility. In such circumstances, a per bag fee may be charged for dumping and thus trash bags will be the normal method of delivery of the trash. Transporting trash in trash bags is more secure than in trash cans as they cannot tip over. Further, the trash is sealed within the bag and there is no need to transport the sometimes soiled and smelly trash containers back from the disposal site. In yet other circumstances, municipal plans for recycling may require that certain types of recyclable materials such as aluminum cans, plastic bottles and glass bottles be placed in a clear plastic bag for identification and collection.
For proper functioning in the collection and handling of refuse, a plastic garbage bag needs to be burst and tear resistant. If the bag is easily burst or torn, the bag may spill its contents before reaching the waste disposal site. The premature breaking of a garbage bag often results in the wind disposal of large quantities of litter. If a bag bursts while being transported, the car or truck transporting the bag may become soiled and the owner of the bag may be subject to considerable penalties for littering along the highway.
When municipalities were allowed to landfill the entire volume of collected municipal waste, the high tear or burst resistance of garbage bags was of little or no concern. However, where efforts are made to recycle substantial portions of the municipal waste stream, it is necessary to open the garbage bags in order to separate out the constituents of the trash. This is particularly essential when the plastic bags contain only recyclable materials as a part of a program to segregate recyclable trash in specially designated plastic bags.
To deal with the difficulty of opening garbage bags, a number of devices have been developed. A device for opening garbage bags employs a multiplicity of bars or tines which are mounted on chains or belts and traverse an endless path about spaced apart sprockets or rollers. The bars are arrayed to penetrate the trash bag with adjacent and/or opposed bars being driven at different speeds to rip the trash bags apart.
Such bag bursting apparatuses are relatively effective. However, the bars which are used to penetrate the bags will not infrequently also penetrate or impale one or more items of garbage, for example, an aluminum can or plastic bottle. Even shreds of plastic bag which become wound around or impaled upon the bars can, as material builds up over time, impede the function of the bag opener or even cause it to jam. When the bars become sufficiently burdened with wastes, the unit must be shut down and the bars cleaned by hand. This can be a time consuming and dirty job.
What is needed is an apparatus for cleaning the bars on a bag breaker.